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Month: November 2008

Beautiful HTML is the foundation of a beautiful website. When I teach people about CSS, I always begin by telling them that good CSS can only exist with equally good HTML markup. A house is only as strong as its foundation, right? The advantages of clean, semantic HTML are many, yet so many websites suffer from poorly written markup.

Most of the tips in here are definitely true, tabbing and doctype and semantics but others are not set in stone, for example sometimes javascript can be listed outside of the head section, and non external css can be okay at times. Moreover, I use php to write fresh js and inline styles for my version of the flickrRSS plugin

“Goddamn this war”, he muttered, pulling off his presidential surgical gloves.
~ More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman

NOTE: This appeared on page 293 as this book begins on page the book begins on page 237, and I didn’t go for the funny bok, I actually was reading this book in bed last night.

Book meme:

– Grab the nearest book.
– Open it to page 56.
– Find the fifth sentence.
– Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
– Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Electronic waste is one of our nations, and the worlds most pressing issues. The inside of my laptop that I am typing on right now is filled with all sorts of horrible materials that can cause immense harm if not disposed of correctly, I’d like to hope that when the time comes to get rid of this machine that it will be handled appropriately by those I entrust with it, and not inappropriately just to make a buck.

If you know me, chances are you will look at the headline of this posting and wonder what happened to me to make me believe that the expression of h8te was a good thing. Well the answer is I have seen the last few days in my state. In the aftermath of something as wrong as proposition 8’s passage I have seen a mass of humanity mobilized in a mixture of fear, disgust and disappointment.

“without struggle there is no progress” ~ Frederick DouglassFriends who have never registered to vote, peers who have never spoken up on anything related to current events or politics, and those with political perspectives the opposite of my own have all spoken up in some manner against enshrining hate in our state’s constitution.

So that is why I believe the passing of this proposition was a good thing, sure I would give anything to have seen the proposition defeated and I honestly weeped at it’s passage, at least something positive has grown out of something so wrong.

We have seen marches in all corners of this state and marches in other states. Young, old, gay, straight, republican and democrat and independent alike have all marched in the days after this election to denounce this proposition’s passage.

In the aftermath of something so wrong, this movement for equality and yes change, has dusted itself off and only grown larger, you see I was complacent, possibly like you were. I looked at the polls and looked inwards at myself and believed the rejection of proposition 8 was only days away. I watched the exit polls showing an Obama victory on election night and assumed to have a huge victory at hand.

That was until just after Obama’s speech and I saw the results start to flow in and reality began to set in. While some exulted in the glow of the election of the first black president, others simply could not, while the nation took one gigantic step forward, my state also took a bigger step back.

Even with this step back though, my hope for the future only grows. I look at the exit polling, and I see hope. I compare the results of proposition 22 in 2000, a similarly themed proposition tossed out by the courts, and the results of proposition 8, and I see the tide slowly turning. Most of all however I look at the youth vote, a segment I still call my own and I see true change. Just over 60% of those under 29 voted against the marriage ban, a number we can only hope to see increase.

Change never comes easy in this country, but change is coming to this state and eventually in this country. In my grandmothers lifetime she has seen a world war, the end of segregation, and the fall of a superpower, and now the first black president, so don’t tell her we can’t change.

There is no legally or morally justifiable reason to not extend the right of marriage to all couples, hate and intolerance has a short life span in this country, it is only a matter of time.

Visitors to my site might notice the address of my blog has slightly changed for the time being, that’s because the root of my site has a splash page, and it promotes a couple simple things that are extremely important to me.

That would be voting, and more importantly voting for Barack Obama. I had planned on writing one of these pages at the end of october, after pink for october wound up, but that was until Matthew Oliphant beat me to it. So I quickly slapped this thing together using a graphic over at design for obama and a couple quick photoshop tricks.

If for some reason you want to borrow this splash page feel free, since its for a limited time and a good cause I don’t mind if you hotlink even.

And if you think the look of the splash page is nice enough, feel free to speak up, I would love to hear about it.